Office of the Press Secretary
(Des Moines, Iowa)
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release November 3, 1994
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
TO THE PEOPLE OF DES MOINES
Des Moines International Airport
Des Moines, Iowa

3:20 P.M. CST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. First of all, I'd like
to thank you for giving me a drier welcome than I had the last
time I came to Iowa. (Applause.)

I want to thank the Dowling High School Band, thank
you very much. (Applause.) I thank my good friend, Senator Tom
Harkin, for that wonderful speech and for being a constant source
of leadership and courage and support in the United States
Senate. I don't know what I would have done without Tom Harkin
in the last two years. (Applause.)

And since I'm in Iowa, I also want to say that Ruth
Harkin is the best director of the Overseas Private Investment
Corporation, has made more American jobs in that position than
anybody who ever held it before she took it. (Applause.)

I am delighted to be here with all the fine leaders
of the Democratic party and with your candidates for Congress --
Glen Winekopf, Sheila McGuire, Elaine Baxter, my old friend, Dave
Nagle -- the second time is the charm for Elaine and Dave; I know
it will be -- (applause); with Neal Smith, whom I admire more
than I can say -- I want to say a little more about him later and
about this race he is in; and with Bonnie Campbell, who ought to
be the next governor of the state of Iowa.

Ladies and gentlemen, this election all over America
represents a choice -- a choice between hope and fear; between
the mainstream and the "meanstream"; between whether we're going
to be together or we're going to be divided; between whether
we're going forward or we're going to go back. I think I know
the answer to that -- you want to keep going forward.
(Applause.)

Twenty-one months ago, with the help of the good
people of Iowa, I moved to Washington to assume the presidency.
Now since that time, I have kept my commitment to try to put the
American people first; to make the government work for ordinary
people; to bring the economy back; to empower Americans so that
everybody could assume the responsibility of living up to the
fullest of their capacities; to give you a world that is more
peaceful and more prosperous for Americans to work in. And while
I know we've still got problems, we've still got folks who are
worried about their jobs and worried they won't get a raise,
people who still are worried about losing their health care --
yes, there are still problems.

But I ask you to consider this -- we went to
Washington to deal with 30 years of social problems; with 20
years of stagnant wages and losing benefits for working people;
with 12 years of the consequences of trickle-down economics; with
four years of the slowest job growth since the Great Depression.
(Applause.) And, folks, after 21 months, we've still got a good
ways to go, but this country is in better shape than it was 21
months ago. (Applause.)

We've taken a stand to try to help ordinary working
people. You heard Bonnie mention the family and medical leave
law, let me tell you what that means in Iowa. It means that
446,000 more Iowa working people can take a little time off if
there's a baby born or a sick parent, without losing their jobs.
That makes a difference here in Iowa. (Applause.)

It means that in Iowa, 358,000 people will be
eligible for lower costs on their college loans because of our
reform of the college loan program. (Applause.) It means in
Iowa that 118,640 working families got income tax reductions
because they're working full time, they have children in their
homes and we don't believe that anybody who does that should be
in poverty. The tax system should lift them out of poverty, not
put them in. (Applause.)

For all their attacks on us, 13 times as many people
in Iowa got an income tax cut as an income tax rate increase.
That is the record of our administration with our support in
Congress moving this country forward. I think we should keep
doing it. (Applause.)

It means after years of bickering delay, we passed
the Brady Bill and the crime bill. And I can tell you that Iowa
-- Iowa -- is the first state in the United States where the
United States Attorney has brought an action under our three
strikes and you're out law. If you commit three serious
offenses, threatening or taking the lives of others, you should
not be eligible for parole. And the first action under a law I
signed two months ago has been taken in Iowa. (Applause.)

The other guys, they always told you how bad the
federal government was. But when they were in charge, the
government got bigger. They always told you that they hated the
deficit, but they quadrupled the national debt. Since we've been
in office, we have reduced the federal deficit; we have shrunk
the federal government; and we have taken all the savings from
the reduction in federal bureaucracy and given it to local
communities in Iowa and all across the United States to fight
crime, to make our streets safer, to give our kids a better
future. I think it's been a good bargain. (Applause.)

When I proposed, and the Congress adopted, our
economic program, the other fellows said the sky would fall.
They said the world would come to an end if the President's
economic program was passed. Well, folks, they were wrong. They
were wrong. (Applause.) You look at the results. In this
country in the last 21 months, our economy has produced 4.6
million new jobs. For the first time in a long time -- and this
is very important for Iowa -- more than half the new jobs created
in 1994 in America played above the national average in wages and
income. We had more high-wage jobs this year than in the past
five years combined. We're moving in the right direction. We
don't need to turn back now. (Applause.)

I told you if you would send me to Washington, I
would be a President who would remember the farmers in rural
America; would remember what it's like to live in the small
towns, in the country crossroads -- the places that Presidents
don't visit and that people don't often take notice of. Well, in
21 months, in agriculture, I think we have plainly kept our
commitments. We've increased loan rates; we've reformed the
nation's crop insurance system; we've given more crop disaster
assistance payments -- they've been based on quality, not just
quantity. We've reduced the paperwork in the farm program; we've
changed the farm income reporting system to more accurately
reflect the real income of the average American farmer. We
brought farmers into the policy-making process at the Department
of Agriculture. We've reorganized; we've reduced spending; we've
taken a $3.6 billion cut in the farm bureaucracy without doing
what the Republicans say they want to do, which is to gut the
farm programs. This is the friend-of-the-farmer administration,
and you ought to support it and keep going forward. (Applause.)

And I want to say something especially about Tom
Harkin and particularly about Neal Smith. When it came to
ethanol, the Republicans said one thing, but did another. I'd
come out here in the middle of farm country in Iowa and Illinois,
the Dakotas, particularly in places that cared about ethanol.
And people would say, well, we're farmers; we usually vote
Republican. And I said, well, if you'll vote for me, I won't
just talk about ethanol; I'll go to Washington and try to do
something about it.

Well, during the last administration, they
cultivated all the farmers, but they danced around the ethanol
issues like a kid around a maypole. (Laughter.) They've tippytoe
here and then they'd go back to Washington and they'd tippytoe
there. I couldn't figure out why, until I got to Washington
and all the establishment in Washington tried to get me to tippytoe,
too. And I said, folks, I haven't been here long enough to
learn this Washington tippy-toe -- I told them in Iowa I was for
ethanol, and I'm going to be for ethanol. (Applause.)

I want you to understand how tough it was. Tom
Harkin, Neal Smith led the fight in the Congress to approve the
promotion of ethanol. (Applause.) The vote was close. In the
United States Senate, it came down to a tie vote; and Al Gore
broke the tie in favor of ethanol. (Applause.) We did it to
make ourselves more independent of foreign oil. We did it to
promote the cleanness of our environment. We did it to create
new jobs for farm families. But if it had not been for Neal
Smith -- I want you to think about this Tuesday -- if it had not
been for Neal Smith, we would not have been able to do it. And
he ought to be sent back to Congress to keep fighting for you.
(Applause.)

We tried to help farmers all over America. We
resolved the wheat dispute with Canada. For the first time --
this is a big deal where I come from -- for the first time ever,
we opened the Japanese market to American rice and the Chinese
market to American apples. Twice this year, including yesterday,
something you care about -- when hog prices were at their lowest
mark in decades, we approved additional sales to Russia and other
states of the former Soviet Union through the Export Enhancement
Program. We are helping the farmers of America. (Applause.)

Tom and Neal and a lot of other people have been
talking to me about the record corn harvest. You know how it is
when you're farming -- you're either flooded or you're glutted.
You escaped the flood, now you've got more corn than you know
what to do with. It's depressed feed grain prices by 10 to 15
percent below the average. Today I am glad to announce that we
will open the Farmer Owned Reserve for 1994 feed grains.
(Applause.) We will provide no-cost extension of the USDA loans
due next July. We'll enable the farmers to store that grain,
rather than sell it when prices are too low. You clap for me,
but you ought to thank Tom Harkin and Neal Smith, the chief
architect of the Farmer Owned Reserve. (Applause.)

When I flew over Iowa last year, when I sat down and
I walked through and I saw the flooded fields and the flooded
cities, it made an indelible impression on me that I will never
forget. I'm proud of the work that our agencies did here last
year -- James Lee Witt and the Emergency Management Agency;
Secretary Espy; Secretary Cisneros; all the others in our
administration. Well, this year, more farmers are hurting from
crop losses in Texas, in the Dakotas, in Kansas, in Georgia, all
across the Southeast. Today we're authorizing further disaster
payments for them -- just under a billion dollars from the
emergency funds we set aside. And you remember what Tom Harkin
said -- the only reason we can do this is because you have a
Democratic President working with our friends in Congress who
restored the cuts made in the disaster assistance program by the
previous Republican administration. (Applause.)

And for those who say, well, that's what the
Democrats do, they just spend money -- no, no, no; it was the
Democrats -- we reduced the deficit, we reduced defense and
domestic spending this year for the first time in 25 years. We
did that. (Applause.) But because of discipline, because of a
commitment to root out waste, because we changed our buying
practices so there wouldn't be anymore $500 hammers and $50
ashtrays, we increased our investment in disaster assistance, in
Head Start, in immunizing all the kids in this country under the
age of two by 1996, in college loans. We increased our
investment in the things that count in this country. (Applause.)

Now, what we need to do, if you really want to keep
going in this direction, is to give me partners. Send these
people to Congress. I need help, folks.

The other guys -- what did they do? They voted no
every chance they got. Every one of them voted against our
program to revolutionize the college loan program, to provide for
more affordable college loans, and it saved money. It saved the
Treasury $4 billion; it saved borrowers $2 billion. They voted
against it because the organized interests were against it.
Every one of them voted against our economic program to reduce
the debt and give 118,000 families in this state a tax cut
because they were just above the poverty line, because they
didn't like it that we asked 1 percent of our people to pay
higher tax rates because they could afford it to reduce the
deficit -- every one of them. (Applause.)

And there are so many things that a President does,
that a Congress does that have their impact in the states. You
know, I had the privilege of serving my state as governor for
quite a long while. On the tough days in Washington, I think
that was the best job I ever had. (Laughter.) And I can tell
you that so much that I hope to do for our economy still can't be
felt unless you have a governor with an economic strategy for
high-wage jobs to help small businesses, to bring economic
opportunity to the rural areas and the places where it has been
lost in the last 10 years. Bonnie Campbell will do that. I want
you to help her get elected. (Applause.)

This crime bill we passed -- it is a very important
piece of legislation. It has more punishment; it has more
prisons; it has more police; it also has opportunities for
prevention to keep kids out of trouble. But the work of fighting
crime is done at the state level, it is done at the community
level. We need partners out here in the country. You have the
tools now to lower the crime rate to make your children safer, to
make your future safer.

The leadership of the other party tried to kill the
crime bill, but we stopped them and we passed it. But now you
need a governor who understands what it takes to lower the rate
of crime, reduce violence and give our kids a better future.
Bonnie Campbell proves as attorney general she does that. She
knows that. Give her a chance to serve. (Applause.)

Now, listen when I tell you what the stakes are in
Congress, and why it is so important that you return Neal Smith
and elect these other candidates for Congress. Last Sunday on
"Meet the Press," the Republicans' top strategist in Washington,
Bill Kristol, said he wanted to end farm subsidies, and as soon
as the election is over, the Republican senator from Kansas,
their leader, would take the lead in doing just that. He said
that; I didn't. Now, Mr. Kristol -- you've probably never heard
of him -- but he's the fellow that tells them what to think up in
Washington. (Laughter.)

He told them, for example, to stop cooperating with
us on health care. I pleaded with him. I said, you don't like
my ideas; I'll try yours; let's cooperate on health care.
Another million Americans in working families lost their health
insurance last year. Farmers in this state and throughout this
country pay astronomical rates for their health insurance. It
isn't right; it isn't fair. I had a plan so that farmers and
small business people could buy health insurance at the same
rates that those of us in the federal government and people that
work for big corporations do. And they refused to cooperate
because Mr. Kristol told them it was bad politics. (Applause.)
He said, he released his memo.

Folks in Washington, one thing I'll say about them,
they're not humble -- they'll tell you right what they're up to.
(Laughter.) He released this memo, and the memo said, you folks
cannot cooperate with this President on health care because if
this country solves the health care problem, the middle class
will go back to voting for the Democrats; so at all costs - never
mind the consequences -- kill health care. That's what they said
in the crime debate. They intimidated their members of Congress.
They said, whatever you do, don't vote for this crime bill; our
job is not to reduce crime, our job is to beat the Democrats.
You don't have to take my word for it. You remember what
Congressman Grandy said. He said that he was ordered not to
cooperate on health care.

So now they've got this plan on farm subsidies, and
they say, we're just practicing election-year scare tactics.
Well, you look at their contract, the contract that Neal Smith's
opponent signed, and that some of these other folks' opponents
signed, and that they'll all be ordered to vote for -- over 300
of them. Here's what the contract says -- now, pay attention.
The contract says, vote for the Republicans, put us in charge in
Washington, and here is what we will do. We'll give everybody a
tax cut, but mostly people in upper-income groups -- they'll get
70 percent of it. We will increase defense; we will bring back
Star Wars; and we will balance the budget. Well, how much does
that cost? A trillion dollars. How are you going to pay for it?
We'll tell you after the election. (Laughter.)

That's what -- I'll tell you how you're going to pay
for it. We had a study done. The House Budget Committee did a
study. A trillion dollars -- there's only one way to pay for it.
You've got to cut everything else 20 percent across the board --
Social Security, Medicare, farm programs, veterans benefits,
college loans -- 20 percent, $2,000 a social security recipient a
year. And, boy, they squealed like a pig under a gate when we
said that. (Applause.) If you take out Social Security, you
know what you have to do -- cut everything else 30 percent across
the board.

And if they're not serious, then what does that
mean? If they're not serious, it means just what Tom Harkin said
-- we're going right back to where we were in the '80s. We're
going to explode the deficit again; we're going to bury our kids
in a mountain of debt; we're going to ship our jobs overseas; and
people will be shipping out of Iowa all over again. No, thank
you; we tried that. We want to go forward. We know better than
that. (Applause.)

Now, I read coming in here -- they always try to
prepare me -- and I read Congressman Smith's opponent, when Neal
pointed this out that he'd signed this contract. And he pointed
out what the consequences were, and he just went nuts and ran a
television ad saying it was a lie. Well, it's not a lie, it's
the truth. I know he is a plastic surgeon, but there are some
things you cannot make pretty, and this contract is one of them.
(Applause.) This contract will perform reverse plastic surgery
on America, and we don't want it; and you don't want it, and you
need to send Neal Smith back to Congress so he can fight it.
(Applause.)

You don't have to take my word for it. Look what
Mr. Grandy said about it. He said it's the crassest kind of
politics. How many times, I quote, "how many times does the
elixir salesman show up with a hair tonic before people figure
out this stuff doesn't work." Do not be suckered.

Senator Warren Rudman, the former Republican senator
from New Hampshire, very prominent in deficit-reduction efforts
in the Congress before he retired, a really old-fashioned
Republican who believed in working with Democrats and sticking up
for what he believed in, said the other day, I guess you'd have
to give the Democrats the credit for reducing the deficit and
managing the economy. All the Republicans were against it.
That's what the Republicans were saying. The mainstream, oldfashioned
Republicans who are also mortified by what is going on
today.

Folks, we've got to stand up against this. We are
going forward in jobs; we are going forward in reducing the
deficit; we are going forward in helping families with things
like family leave and immunizations and expanded Head Start and
the tax breaks for working people. We are going forward with
welfare reform. We are going forward with the crime bill. We
are going forward to make this world a better place. We have
reduced the nuclear threat. For the first time since nuclear
weapons were developed, there are no missiles pointed at the
children of Iowa and the United States. (Applause.)

And North Korea has committed itself to be checked
and not to become a nuclear state. And we are expanding the
trade opportunities through NAFTA, through GATT, through the trip
I'm about to take to the Far East after the election. We are
breaking down barriers to American products and American
services. We are standing up for peace and democracy from South
Africa to South Korea to the Persian Gulf to the Middle East to
Haiti to Northern Ireland -- everywhere. This country is leading
a movement inside and outside the world toward a more prosperous
and a more peaceful level. And we are challenging the American
people to make the most of their own capacities and to assume
responsibility for their lives.

So you have a choice. Will you be for the progress
that we are making, or will you go back? Will you be for the
hope that we are promoting, or for the fear that they are
pandering to? Will you be for what is best in us, or will you be
for their easy promises and their cynicism? You know, these
elections are going to be determined, in large measure, by the
state of mind people are in when they go to the polls next
Tuesday. We're out here telling people, this is a great country,
we can do better. We are doing better. But we've dealt with 30
years of social problems, 20 years of economic problems, 12 years
of trickle-down economics. And in 21 months, we're moving things
in the right direction. (Applause.) They're saying, we've
still got problems; be mad; vote against them, vote for us; look
at our promises.

Those of us who are parents in this audience today,
we know that one of the first things we have to teach our
children when they get old enough to understand it is not to make
important decisions when they're made, isn't it? How many times,
those of you who are like me who can still remember your
childhood, just barely, did your mama or daddy say to you, when
you're mad, count 10 before you say anything? Their theory is,
count one and vote no. (Laughter.) That's what their theory is.
(Applause.) They don't want you to think; they don't want you to
feel; they want you to lash out. We have to say, no, we're
better than that.

I just came home from this unbelievable opportunity
I had to represent you and our country in the Middle East; to
witness the signing of the peace agreement between Israel and
Jordan because of the role the United States played in making
that peace; to see our young men and women in uniform in the
deserts of Kuwait; to look into the faces of millions and
millions and millions of people from six other countries who saw
in me and in them the promise of America. And let me tell you
something, folks -- outside this country, people are not cynical
about this country. They know America is a very great nation,
leading the world to a better future. (Applause.)

And so I as you, I ask you to think about that. Out
here today, we're all preaching to the saved. But tomorrow there
will be other voters you can talk to, you can talk to for Bonnie
Campbell; you can talk to for Neal Smith; you can talk to for
these other fine people running for Congress. They need you and
the stakes are high; and America needs them. We are moving
forward; we have always been a country moving forward. We are
taking on problems that the other guys ignored for years and
years and years. And yes, sometimes it's messy and sometimes
it's hard; and challenges are not as easy to hear as easy
promises. But you know this is a challenging time. And I'm
telling you, the best days of this country are still before us if
we take up these challenges.

Stick with these people. Go forward. Vote for
hope. Vote for tomorrow. Thank you, and God bless you all.
(Applause.)